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She walks toward
swords held crossed above her head
kilt swinging
strong legs, proud back
the bagpipes drone and wail, supporting her
carying within it the voices of ancestors
the strength of traditions of a proud people
who tolerate no dishonour

Stopping at the grave site
laying the swords crossed before her
her sword of will and power earned
his of pain and power taken
She leaps in the air
flying feet in warrior rhythm
No preparatory dance this, traditional to prove one’s mettle before battle
This is the battle dance of victory for enemy defeated
the battle dance of survival and the dance of triumph
Leaping over crossed swords as her ancestors taught, she banishes
she honours them and herself
She does what they did,
pinning unquiet ghosts to earth.

Leaping the final complicated steps over and around swords
faster faster
spinning, then stopping, fists held high, then drawn from sky to waist.
a knot tied.
a battle completed.
She bows and walks away.
head high.

One of the things I believe as part of my religion is that communication with the Gods is not just a one way flow. Events that feel significant in one way or another, probably are. Many people believe that their Gods answer their prayers for help or guidance in this way.

Photocredit: Zanastardust

I went downtown on the weekend where there was a big community festival and stumbled into a speech given by an aboriginal woman who was an Olympic gold medalist. She talked about how she had gotten severe PTSD from being near-fatally stabbed by a Canadian soldier during a historic conflict between the military and her nation that happened when she was a child. The conflict is a shameful event in Canadian history when the Canadian military supported developers wanting to turn her people’s burial ground into a golf course. Since her nation, like many aboriginal cultures (and my Pagan tradition), practices ancestor worship/veneration, desecrating a burial site is a sacriledge. She was speaking to a mostly aboriginal audience, and talked about how her determination to be the best in her sport saved her life by giving her meaning. It had affected her powerfully when a person from her first nation had won a gold medal in the Olympics, how it counteracted the racist prejudices and beliefs of the majority culture against aboriginal people, and she wanted to give that gift to other aboriginal children. She said to consider how your descendants would remember you. She also said that her people alive today are survivors, and by the process of survival of the fittest, were therefore the best of her people.

This had me in tears and I left the hall and went out into the street where I walked away from the crowds. A few blocks away there was a bagpiper in traditional dress just standing on the sidewalk, playing traditional songs I’d heard in my highland sword dancing days. Again I had a strong emotional reaction and thought immediately of the sword dance. I felt a strong sense that this was important.

I continued down the street and went into a cafe and ordered a latte and some cake. I sat down and a few minutes later, in came a woman I had met at a Pagan conference about a year ago, and run into recently at another Pagan event. She came over and greeted me in a friendly way and we spoke for a couple of minutes.

Three events occuring at a time that affected me emotionally and spiritually, like there was something inside that resonated with each.

Making meaning of trauma by providing inspiration…Sword Dance…Pagan

I should have prefaced this with the fact that I’ve been seriously considering what I’m meant to do with this new evidence about the abuse, and how to make meaning of what happened.

These events helped me come to the conclusion that the best way on is forward. It’s like I got permission from the Goddess not to go to court, that it’s okay, he doesn’t have some little girl held captive I need to rescue. The sword dance is enough. Perhaps knowing about the scar tissue will help me be more definitive when talking about what happened. I certainly feel more confident that what I remember is correct.

Photocredit: Wigwam Jones

Like Cazaril, I need to trust that the talents I have been given are the ones I am to use for good. Like the speech-giver (I’m withholding her name not to deny her honour but for my own privacy), I have a duty to give hope to the survivors and children who come behind me. My Scottish heritage has given me a tool to reframe how society sees survivors, as warriors and veterans who fight for justice and virtue. My Pagan training and faith gives me a way to structure that fight that is meaningful and powerful, as well as, in my faith, a spell that actually changes reality for the better and focusses people’s will on stopping child abusers.

I think I’m finally ready to be at peace with my father/abuser’s death (if it ever comes) and to celebrate surviving him with a sword dance.

Getting to certainty is important. When I read Tarot, I get myself calm and centred, and then reach down to my roots and dwell there. This helps me be grounded in my intuition and my connection to the Goddess. If I don’t do this, the cards are just cards, and nothing magical happens.

But when I connect deeply, I know with certainty. I can judge my emotional and spiritual health, no matter what is going on, by how deeply connected I feel. I am a tree with deep roots. I am a bird who rides the updrafts. I am the sunlight sinking into muscles and the green generators of plants. I am the water seeping into the porous soil, filling every tiny crevice and crack.

When I am connected, magic happens. A month or so ago I read a book about the science around psychic phenomenon. I’m not going to get into all the interesting double-blind, scientific evidence that certain kinds of extra-sensory perception exists, which was amazingly credible to a gal with a university education and a sharp analytical mind. This book validated something I have believed for a long time.

When I changed my first name, the name I chose fit me so well that even my mother agreed it was better. I chose it because it was a name I’d given as a child to several of my most precious stuffed animals and dolls in succession from early childhood. Then I looked it up in one of my mythology books and liked what it meant. It fit in a way that my birth name had not. I hadn’t intended to change my first name, only my last one, as a symbolic disowning of my father, but ended up changing both when I connected with this new name so deeply.

I have spent many times in the past twenty years connecting with myself as a child, talking to her, sending her love and the assurance that things will work out well in the end, that she will survive and that I love her. I have told my younger self this during flashbacks and when her fear and pain makes me afraid at night. I have done this for years.

As a child I had no-one, really. I drew my comfort from plants and my self-centred older brother, my books and my dolls and my teachers. I had few friends, a precarious social existence with my peers and a mother who was the complete slave of my father. I had a dear younger brother, who was also my bratty younger brother.

But I did feel connected, somehow. Connected with rocks, and trees and the stuffed animals and dolls. I named the most important and comforting of these, the ones that were an extension of my self, with this name I now wear.

I believe that I felt then the love I’ve been sending to that self. This kind of retro-time communication is one of the effects documented in the book I read. I believe that it actually, literally reached me in my most painful and terrifying moments and that’s why I’ve done so well for myself despite being alone and abused. The Goddess used me to reach out to myself.

Lois McMaster Bujold, one of my favourite authors, writes through a character named Umegat in the Curse of Challion that “The Gods are parsimonious”, meaning that they work through people rather than the flashy miracles most of the time. And yet the more open we are to the path we are led to, the more beautiful and right what flows through turns out to be. The lead character in the book, Cazaril finds his way to a place he’d lived as a boy after a horrible ordeal and betrayal in war, and is drawn by his own good character and at times reluctant willingness to be used by the Gods into ending a powerful curse.

Perhaps we survivors are suffering in the service of a greater goal, to end a powerful curse on the whole biosystem, a curse of domination and greed.

In the book, the curse can only be broken by someone who dies three times for his country. Cazaril turns out to die three times, once by intervening as a galley slave to save a younger slave from a likely lethal beating, which he incurs instead. The second time he performs an act of death magic to kill a villain who is forcing a princess Cazaril has been entrusted to protect to marry him and intends to rape her. The spell itself is a prayer for justice and price of is one’s own death in addition to that of the guilty party, who must truly be guilty. When a Goddess by miracle seals the soul of the guilty man inside a tumour in Cazarils body, the death of the enemy is accomplished without Cazaril’s death but Cazaril is burdened with constant and physically painful haunting. The last death is when Cazaril is fatally stabbed by the villain’s even more evil brother, who pierces the tumour, and ends up paying the death magic price in Cazaril’s stead, freeing him of his brother’s soul as well.

The whole point of this convoluted tale is that all this was actually necessary. The Gods needed Cazaril to learn the skills of surrender that allowed them in the end to enter the world through him so they could correct what was causing the curse. It was all a lesson in becoming empty and getting out of the way. They really wanted to end the curse causing so much pain, but couldn’t do it without an agent in the land of form and matter.

As clumsily as I have paraphrased Bujold’s beautiful story, it inspires me. It makes me believe that the lessons of being a survivor are worth something that are worth the price paid.

When Cazaril experiences the miracle sealing his enemy’s soul inside him (with effects very reminiscent of being a trauma survivor, actually) he becomes a saint, and is recognized as such by a temple priest Umegat, also a saint, who has been holding the curse back from killing the king. Cazaril asks Umegat what the duties of a saint are.

Umegat says”

“You cannot outguess the gods. Hold to virtue—if you can identify it—and trust that the duty set before you is the duty desired of you. And that the talents given to you are the talents you should place in the gods’ service. Believe that the gods ask for nothing back that they have not first lent to you. Not even your life.”

Then Cazaril says:

“If the gods are making this path for me, then where is my free will? No, it cannot be!”

Ah.” Umegat brightened at this thorny theological point. “I have had another thought on such fates, that denies neither gods nor men. Perhaps, instead of controlling every step, the gods have started a hundred or a thousand Cazarils and Umegats down this road. And only those arrive who choose to.”

“But am I the first to arrive, or the last?”

“Well,” said Umegat dryly, “I can promise you you’re not the first.”

So, taking Bujold’s lesson to heart, what does that mean in my quest to do the Goddess’ will in making the world a better place?

Hold to virtue, if you can identify it.

Trust that the duty set before you is the duty desired of you. (hmmm… I see a court case in my future.)

And the talents given you are the talents you should place in the gods’ service. (I see a squad of holy sword dancers outside a courthouse in northern Canada. I see speaking and writing and singing about this. )

Believe that the gods ask for nothing back that they have not first lent you. (I will have what I need.)

Here is a sports medicine journal article which is the only one I found about survivors and issues with exercise. There was another one that said that about half of the survivors surveyed had found physical exercise to be a helpful healing strategy. I’d have to say that it fits for me. I feel like I’ll fail, generally, at whatever physical exercise I do if it’s at all taxing. Partner dance seems to be an exception for me. I think it’s the slower pace initially and the social part of it (someone is there to do it with the whole time) that makes it easier.

Relationship of Sexual Abuse to Motivation for Strenuous Exercise

Hesdon B, Salmon PJ Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2003;43:213-219

Aim: Sources of motivation for intense physical exercise are poorly understood. Based on views that link such behaviour to preexisting psychopathology, we tested the hypotheses that history of childhood sexual abuse would be greater in intense exercisers than in non-exercisers, and that effects of abuse on self-esteem, perfectionism and body dissatisfaction would help to explain any link between abuse and exercise.Methods: Consecutive attenders at two types of exercise were recruited: weight training and running. Sedentary attenders at a further education college provided a third, comparison group. Each group contained 64 men and 64 women. Participants completed questionnaires to record history of sexual and physical abuse in childhood and adulthood, body dissatisfaction, self-esteem, and positive and negative perfectionism.Results: Adult, but not childhood abuse, was reported by more weight-trainers than others. Abused individuals were more anxious and depressed, were more negative about themselves and were more concerned with avoiding failure in general. Women abused in childhood were more concerned with avoiding failure at exercise in particular.Conclusion: These results suggest hypotheses that link adult abuse to intense weight training habits and, in women, that link child abuse to feelings of failure in exercise.

I’ve had pain and itching in my vulva for most of my life. I’ve worn out holes in the fronts of underwear from scratching. This, I’ve found through some recent reading, is actually pretty common with vaginal injuries like mine.

This summer, when I found out about the two tear scars and vascular damage, it all began to make sense. The medical professional that saw me suggested I ice my vulva when I was feeling pain or discomfort. Well she said something cool, and I’m using a well wrapped ice pack.

It works. It actually works and I don’t have to dissociate from that part of my body any more.

The pain happens without warning, and I’ve gotten accustomed to ignoring it. But now I have something to do about it, something that works.

So tonight I’m sitting on an ice pack, watching TV.

May you rot in hell, Dad.

This, as my friend Butterfly would say, is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.

I did my full voice workout today, after a couple of days missing it. It felt good. I’m getting better at relaxing the muscles in my neck and remembering to keep my knees unlocked. I’m able to focus more. I changed the room I’m practicing in too, which seems to help.

I was early for my therapy appointment today, and was sitting in the waiting room browsing magazines. I opened up a Buddhist one, Shambala Sun. The first article was about Buddhist jargon stuff that I never get and frankly find annoying. I studied philosophy so I’m quite comfortable with arguments that for example try to prove that a tree doesn’t exist, but this was not making any sense to me at all. This is why I am not a Buddhist. I agree that everything is interconnected, but I have no need or desire to get off the wheel of life. I’m happy to be connected in the here and now.

End of Buddhism rant. Sorry to any Buddhists out there. I’m clearly not getting it, I know, but if I was meant to get it it would make intuitive sense to me, and it just doesn’t. I don’t get Christianity either, so it’s fine.

What I did like and what brought me to tears was a piece by Thich Nhat Hahn which was on about how being present with anything you’re doing or feeling makes it holy, or puts you in a holy space. He said something that I did agree with and made intuitive sense to me, that ritual done without the priest(ess) being fully present and mindful had no meaning. Sitting there in the office taking a moment to bring mind and body together in the present moment, so hard for us survivors, brought tears to the surface. I didn’t even know the story behind the tears, but only that they were there.

I had to put my dog down last week. My wife and I were on a trip and our dog has an existing hip injury that would have been difficult and costly to repair. He’s a nervous, active, wilful dog (or was one anyhow) and was flailing around making it worse in the car. Even if we had repaired the injury and dragged our difficult doggie through a year of rehab, his other hip would probably have gone and then he’d have died of old age. So we cut the journey a bit short for him, and us. I feel less guilty now than I did. His death was not the calm one I’d envisioned – he was never a calm or easy dog. We’d had him since he was less than a week old and had never been able to train him out of his behaviour problems, which included aggression toward other dogs and sometimes kids. He whined constantly whenever he didn’t get what he wanted, which was most of the time, and which meant constant accompaniment on car trips. If we’d been able to find dog care, we wouldn’t have brought him, but couldn’t find any. He never actually bit anyone, but we had to watch him closely. My wife and I feel guilty being relieved he’s gone. Our remaining dog is happy to have the extra attention.

I miss him most at night. In my rough neighbourhood, he’d often bark if something was going on on the street, and although he had a lot of false alarms (cat’s in the yard are not the danger to me they seem to him), I could count on him to notice if someone was lurking around the house. My wife doesn’t seem to hear these things. My other dog is pretty good as alerting me to trouble too, but I haven’t lived with her for nine years like the dog we put down. I still feel him sometimes, and can feel the hair on his chest as I reach a hand to stroke it. I think if he is confused, wherever he is after death, it is my job as his alpha to provide a safe place to go to if he needs it. He can haunt me as long as he likes. I’ve been present with my guilt, my grief and my relief, and now with just missing him. The storm is passing.

Today in therapy I talked about the possibility I might need to end my marriage. It’s a big deal. I’m the first gay person in my extended family and my wife’s to get married ever. it’s like being the first inter-racial couple in a family. It would suck on so many levels to have it end in divorce a mere three years after people stood up for us and blessed us. My wife and I are very different on so many levels, and the glue we once had that made it work anyways has worn thin. We’ve gotten into power struggles where I try and change her and she resists, and it’s not working. The only way to win a power struggle is to give up, like letting go of the rope in tug of war, and that’s what I’m trying to do. My therapist has suggested I write down a list of what needs to change so I can look back in March and see whether anything changed once I stopped nagging. I’m also to make a list of ways I can feel safe that are independent of her.

I have a book called “Too good to leave. Too bad to stay.” that I’ve been looking at. It’s not bad. The author, Mira Kirshembaum, takes the position that deciding if a relationship is worth staying in is not a weighing scale with the good balanced against the bad, it’s a diagnosis of whether the relationship has the factors that make it possible to be satisfying or not. She asks questions, starting with the obvious “has your partner hit you more than once” (no), which signal a “sure thing, do not pass go, this relationship is never going to be worth having” to more subtle things. She says things like ” most people who answer yes to this question do not regret having left the relationship”, rather than putting a value judgement on it. I read the first chapter or so and then stopped. So far we’ve of course passed the obvious tests, but in the more subtle stuff, there’s no clear indication this relationship is a keeper just yet.

I’m not going to talk about my marriage a lot, so as to respect my wife’s privacy, but it’s definitely something running through my thoughts and feelings right now. Everything we do seems bittersweet, and sometimes I slip into denial and wonder what I’m going on about, my marriage is fine. Perhaps all I need to do is be present with it through this all.

I’ve been telling my friends that coming back from my week at camp I feel like I’ve had a megadose of ultra-strength feminist Mother Earth vitamins. It’s not like I”m any different, just more of myself, and I feel stronger and more resilient.

How important it is to be in a space where I can drink deep of the healing power of swimming in a lake, breathing in the moist scent of pine, cedar and soil, having a whole day, a whole week even with nothing to do but enjoy and visit with nice women. How critical it is as a survivor to be able to be frank.

There was a woman there who had just finished hearing about the sentencing of a man who had almost killed her. I told her I appreciated how frank she was being about it, and we compared horrific life experience stories and betrayal byour mothers and families in a laughing and cynical way that was very refreshing.

I had a huge cry on the first day of the camp about the scars and the deeper level of reality of the rape of me as a child. It was so good to let my sorrow go into the Earth, and to know that I was safe. For the rest of the camp I felt joyful and strong, which I often do when I’ve been able to let deep feelings flow. Intimacy with myself, in ceremony, lovemaking or sometimes solitude, often produces this type of crying release, but if I stop the flow to spare the sensibilities of others or feel I’ll be judged, it cuts me off from myself, and from my wife. I noticed a few other women crying, and made a point of connecting with each of them. All had something legitimately horrible they were grieving, but by releasing the feelings in safe space, like me, they all seemed to feel better. I invited them to be real with me, and was able to be real in turn, which meant I had women who knew and accepted where I was at sprinkled throughout the camp. I made a point of being a cheerleader for crying “go cryers, go cryers!” in a playful way to point out that I’m a cryer too and it’s good to cry when you need to. People laughed. Crying when you needed to became a normal and good thing. Blessings.

On my last day at the lake I was swimming with a woman who I’d become friends with. I told her how healing it had been to swim naked, to allow the sacred lake to bless my body in a way that wouldn’t have felt the same in a swimsuit. I told her about the scars I’d recently discovered and she looked at me and said “isn’t it interesting how all sharing here seems to reach an understanding audience”. I won’t tell you what she disclosed to me then, but although she who was not to my knowledge a survivor, she also bore the scars of a betrayal by someone she loved and trusted.

Today on the phone I was talking with a good Pagan friend who knows I’m a survivor. I told her I’d recently had an exam that showed me some scar tissue I didn’t know about from when I was raped as a child. She said “scars where?” and I said “where do you think?” A silence followed as she allowed that to sink in. We talked together about our murder fantasies of killing the men who had done the intolerable to us – her ex husband who is damaging her son’s spirit, and my father who had done the unthinkable to me. I said to her “you don’t have to pretend it’s not as bad as it is, I’m one of the few people who actually understands a good revenge and murder fantasy”.

Feminist vitamins. Sharing reality, building solidarity, becoming less alone. One capsule at a time.

So I figure I’ve got grieving nailed down now. At the retreat this week I had several gut-shaking cries that were very cleansing. In a wierd way, I like grieving, it’s when the pain leaves my system and I feel peace.

So now I’m on to anger and rage. Like when I first started grieving, it tends to give me a hangover for a few days and leave me feeling vulnerable. It’s tied up in my ability to exercise hard, something I have problems doing because they bring up feelings that seem to intense for public spaces. Such a relief to be at the retreat where I could just duck off into a nice forest or drum when I had feelings to express!

Yesterday in therapy, my therapist asked me if there was a spirit or energy that went with my anger and I realized there is. The bear. A big brown mother bear with all my mass and bulk, strong forearms and claws. The bear can eviscerate my father with a few strokes of clawed arms, with all the weight of her large fur-covered body behind each stroke. In anger as/with the bear, I can express anger safely.

I’ve joined one of those exercise ‘boot camps’ with some friends. Normally I get triggered while exercising hard, but with my emotional backlog cleared at the camp I was able to just exercise without tears or getting bitchy or overwhelmed. I’m hoping that exercising with/as the bear will help me learn to be in my physicality again. Physically I am kind of a bear (without the fur) so it makes sense on that level as well as spiritually.

I also tried invoking the Goddess Artemis, Bear Goddess and Guardian of Virgins, but becamed overwhelmed with the energy and conflicting emotions connected to her. I should have realized that she and I would have some talking to do after seeing for myself the scope of the damage to my virgin self. I haven’t dipped into those feelings yet, but I suspect they are about the Goddess’ rage and my own at the magnitude of violence against girls, as well as hurt confusion at not being protected by Her. It is in a way lucky for me that Artemis and all the other Goddesses were not the Goddesses of my childhood. I think God/dess/es generally don’t protect us so much as empower us to support/heal and protect ourselves, which often seems woefully inadequate.

As a girl I believed somewhat in the standard vaguely Christian male God of my Anglican and United Church parents. This particular God has often been on the side of oppressors (sorry, but it’s true), so I now choose other deity forms that fit my values and experiences better. Do I want to support the God that has been used (perhaps against His will, perhaps not) to prop up abusers and the patriarchy for centuries? This God does not seem very interested in or effective at inspiring His supporters to love their neighbours as themselves and quite good at supporting men at being mysogynist power-trippers. However, perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps this God has just taken on the toughest cases: the bigots, the patriarchs, the mysogynists, the warmongers, the paedophiles and the racists, and is just taking awhile to influence and heal them. May it be so.

For my part, I see my own wounding and recovery as an unfortunately necessary passage, like childbirth, in order to create a woman’s voice and warrior that the Earth and humanity needs. It’s my job to do what I am guided to do to make the world a better place, and I know that my background and what I’ve learned helps me do that. Perhaps when I’m dead I’ll understand more about why this was necessary, but it will do as an explanation for now.

“Warriorship…does not refer to making war on others. Agression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word “warrior” is taken from the Tibetan Pawo, which literally means “one who is brave.” Warriorship—is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness.” – Chogyam Trungpa

In those terms, most of the survivors I know are also warriors.

“The trained martial artist…truly acts only in response to agression. He [sic]does not seek it out. When made, his [sic] responses are nonresistant and nonviolent. He [sic] is a man of peace. – Musashi (1584-1645)

Something to strive for.

“Each Warrior wants to leave the mark of his [sic] will, his signature, on important acts he touches. This is not the voice of ego but of the human spirit, rising up and declaring that it has something to contribute to the solution of the hardest problems, no matter how vexing!” – Pat Riley

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. (Ghandi)

I quit the my position on the board of an company I co-founded this morning. I hadn’t had too much sleep. My wife and I had been up till 1 AM (unusual for us) and I’d been woken by the summer sunlight and a persistent sense of anxiety this morning at 7am. I finally got up at 7:30 and did a tarot reading. “Tell me about quitting the board” I asked. The response was pretty unanimous, it was a good business decision, and the time had come for change.

Now before you think that I make major decisions solely on the basis of a card reading, I don’t. I founded this organization years ago with a guy who became my friend I met at a meeting to discuss [censored] that was posted in a local paper. We were both annoyed by the 'all talk no action' atmosphere of the meeting and decided that we wanted to actually get something done on a cause we cared about.

So we founded [the company]. In the process we took on several more members, but it was still mostly me and that first guy who did most of the work. We've completed several projects. Over time there became a dynamic between an the guy I founded it with, where I realized both of us needed more control than we'd get sharing the company with each other. At the same time, he wanted to quit his regular job and work more for the organization and I wanted to focus more on my own business. So I let him know I'd be backing off. I still had his back, filled in for him when he went on vacation, attended board meetings and helped out when I could.

I was getting the official and tax mail for the organization at my home, and I noticed a pattern where we were getting a lot of “you haven’t filed such and such government paperwork yet” and “you owe us a remittance on this tax or that tax” letters. One was a ‘you still haven’t paid your insurance’ letter. I passed them on to my colleague, who does the books and he explained he’d gotten swamped and hadn’t dealt with them but would, or that he just had, or whatever. I believed him, and probably still do, although it is definitely not my style to let these things go undone. I didn’t want to appear critical, because I knew he was truly swamped, but made suggestions about getting a bookkeeper, and I began to get very uneasy.

One night I woke up in the middle of a dream with the sudden knowledge that I should get off the board. I considered it, but knew that I had no respect for most of the other people who were involved, and he’d be outnumbered and hung out to dry without me.

I was sick on the night of our AGM, but sent word that I was okay with standing for the board.
When it came time for me to do the paperwork to let the government know about the results of the AGM. I looked at the responsibilities and liabilities of a board of directors. It turns out all of us are responsible, personally, financially for the debts of the organization. I called my friend to ask him to explain the financial statements from the AGM to me and to ask him how we stood. He explained he was having some problems with one of the suppliers, who had been paid for equipment that he wasn’t delivering, and that we had some accounts payable that he hadn’t gotten to invoicing.

On a whim, I opened one of the bank statements (which also were coming to the house) that I hadn’t been looking at. In it, I saw references to at least one loan. I asked my friend about it and he said he’d been lending personal money to the organization to help it through cash flow issues. I didn’t ask him how much.

At the next meeting I attended, we talked about the finances and the full story came out, that we were tens of thousands of dollars in debt, most of which was money lent interest free from his savings by my friend, but that when the invoices were paid it would all work out. With me making the argument that as a board, we have to know about and control new debt if we’re going to be responsible for it, we voted in some measures to put a cap on any future debt, and to make sure the board authorizes any further borrowing. I was also asked to write a collection/settlement letter threatening legal action to the supplier.

That night I was restless and motivated by anxiety about the meeting, did all the things I’d volunteered to do, including sending out the draft letter for review by the other members, staying up till midnight to do so. One of the other board members, who is a friend of the recalcitrant supplier, took exception to the legal tone of the letter and my speed in producing it. He accused me of vindictiveness against his supplier friend, he thought, who he figures I’ve had something against all along. He always smelled fishy to me, so maybe I did. In a transparently veiled way, he laid his anger on me in an email ccd to everyone.–>

A man can be called ruthless if he bombs a country to oblivion. A woman can be called ruthless if she puts you on hold.

– Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)

I’d had enough. This guy does no work at all, and rarely follows through with anything he commits to do. I told him in no uncertain terms, ccing all the others, as he had, that I’d only done as I’d been asked and that when he started doing as much work as I did and as promptly I’d be more willing to take his criticism. My friend also clarified in another email I wish I’d read before responding, that he also saw the need to take legal action against the supplier and that I had been only doing as they’d all agreed in the meeting.

Again, I get an angry response from the other board member, attacking me personally for my manner, things I’d said, and blaming me for a painful experience I’d told him about in another situation, accusing me of having poor personal skills. Essentially the message was “bad not submissive woman, assertive dyke, you have no right to stand up to me, a man, about this and be mean to my poor helpless friend (who owes us $6000 and a pissed of client for the delays)”.

I replied and told him he was clearly taking the matter personally, and that the letter was a business decision, and that his personal attacks were inappropriate and I wanted them to stop. I apologized to the others for including them in my emails to this guy and said that I would not be discussing the topic further.

Here’s when the last straw happened.

My friend replies to my email and told both of us the email exchange was the most unprofessional he’d seen and that he wanted us to stop (I already had) and direct any future emails to him. I agreed the other guy was very unprofessional, but although I probably could have accepted the other guy’s first barb and taken the high road (and resented it), after that I’d been carefully worded my responses.

I was exhausted with pain and shame. Nobody likes a whistle-blower. If it hadn’t been for me, the financial problem would have limped on forever and we’d have been thousands more in debt or something worse – like the insurance bill not getting paid and us getting sued for liability on one of our jobs with no insurance to cover us. If it hadn’t been for me, no-one would have supported my friend’s need to take a harder line with this supplier.

So this morning, I decided to quit the board. A progressive company should be directed by those who actually do most of the work, which (now) isn’t me and it isn’t my ‘just in it for his resume’ board colleague, who has barely done a lick of work in years. I crafted and sent an email, at the same time reading yet another poison pen email from the other board member. Knowing I was quitting, it didn’t sink in at all.

My wife is all for it. Once I told her we were potentially on the hook for this debt, she wanted me out. She’s also heard me complain for the last year or two about being frustrated and ambivalent. It’s time to let go.

Tomorrow I have to see my friend to finish a task I promised to do. He’s let me know he wants to talk about ‘it’ and I’ve agreed. I don’t know if he’ll tell me off or try and talk me into staying. I do know it will probably be difficult.

I’m prepared to tread the high road here, but I’m not going back.

Dumbledore was right, it is harder to stand up to your friends than your enemies.

This weekend I attended a Pagan conference and met some interesting and helpful people.

"Wicca Apples" Photocredit: Sinjy, 2006

Have you ever had a period in your life where you appear to be in Grace? Where challenges emerge and are defeated easily? Where it seems simple to be calm and powerful? The voices of the divine and your own truth seem strong and clear? I seem to be in one. My music is going fabulously, I’m attracting all kinds of resources I’ve needed, and most importantly, other people’s gunk seems to be sliding off my back like I’m coated in Teflon(R).

Pagan gatherings are a quite a bit in feel like science fiction conventions – a variety of flavours of modern neo-paganism are represented. One thing I realized, that unlike the women-specific spiritual events I’ve attended, which are generally attended and organized by smart, highly competent, healthy and empowered women, the mixed Pagan ones attract a nerdier, more fringe crowd. This is not to say that most of the people I met weren’t remarkable and nice, but that I noticed a distinct difference in general social functioning, on the whole, with several people who didn’t seem to be doing well at all. Seeing how it was a Canada wide conference, I attended to see what was going on and do a bit of networking.

Amazon warrior that I am, I got into several heated intellectual discussions (which I enjoy, for the most part) and at least one controversy.

There’s a split in modern Paganism, or perhaps only in the sub-category of Wicca or Witchcraft, between the folks that are into a fertility based practice and those whose practice is ecstatic. Fertility practice of Wicca (also known as traditional or Gardnerian Wicca) is essentially a religion that gives relatively equal prominence to both Goddesses and Gods (with Goddesses being slightly more central), celebrates heterosexuality as a manifestation of the creative power of the Gods, and is based in the tradition started 50 or so years ago by Gerald Gardiner. The most central imagery, rituals and practices are often concerned with celebrating heterosexual sexual expression. This is NOT to say they’re having orgies all over the place, it’s just that the erotic attraction between men and women occupies a similar symbolic place in traditional paganism that for example the imagery of torture and murder via crucifiction occupies in Christianity. Christianity isn’t all about or even mainly about torture and death, but the imagery of crucifiction, which was a historical method of torture/execution, is a big part of their imagery and festivals such as Easter. What’s interesting to me is that unlike the traditions I practice, the women-oriented facets of fertility, particularly virginity, pregnancy and birthing, don’t get nearly the amount of emphasis in these ‘fertility’ traditions as the sexuality itself. Gods are seen primarily as lovers or fathers and the Goddess as lover or mother. Sister and brother Gods or virgin Goddesses do not carry much importance and do not appear to be emphasized. In some of the traditions I have experience with the Gods as brothers and sisters are just as important and provide important models of respect and cooperation between the sexes.

By contrast my own practice is in the ecstatic and social justice traditions (some examples are Reclaiming, Dianic, Goddess Sprituality and Feri traditions) which are not nearly as focussed on heterosexualily and more on relationship with the Gods and taking positive action in the world. Understandably as a gay woman, heterosexual sex, while as sacred as any other, is not of interest to me, so my expression is more about individual growth, recovering and celebrating my own body, intuition, honouring the Earth in action (environmentalism) as well as observance, and creating and discovering rituals and connections with the Divine Feminine that reinforce me and other women in being powerful, effective and strong. It is based in both Feminism, Goddess Sprituality and Wicca, with a social justice component from a tradition called Reclaiming.

The controversy began when a non-pagan film-maker presented her film about witches and invited discussion and feedback afterward. The only voices represented in the film were from fertility traditions, some of whom represented that in contrast to male centred religions, Wicca was about the balance between God and Goddess. Since the film maker was looking for feedback, I pointed out that my style, which is primarily about the Goddess, had not been represented. At this point, some reps of the other style – all older males, told me in paternal tones that while I was certainly Pagan, I was not a Wiccan because I didn’t give equal importance to male Gods worshipped via the imagery of straight sex as they do. I was, of course, offended, but couldn’t help but remember a conversation years ago with someone from an Evangelical Protestant sect who told me straight faced that Catholics weren’t Christians. Seeing how Catholics invented Christianity (or are at least the earliest surviving version I know of) this is patently ridiculous, so I had the perspective that all religions seem to do this infighting thing over stupid differences in practice. Similarly, I’m pretty certain that if they start up the bonfires to begin burning witches again, assertive female activist feminist witches will be the first they want to throw on the pyre. Our enemies know we’re all witches, so these boys need to just get over it.

I defended my point pretty well I thought, and even though I could have felt ganged up on (those in the room who I later found shared my beliefs kept their mouths shut), I didn’t really. I mostly just saw their rigidity and dogmatism as coming from their own insecurities, as older men holding onto what privilege they’d scrounged together in a religion that is, at least officially, led by women (The high priestess is technically the leader of each worship group, although a high priest may also serve). Most religions do this kind of infighting. It’s too bad, but really nothing personal.

Standing up to the patriarchy and heterosexism, and being a misunderstood minority in a room full of peers, really ought to have worn me out, but didn’t particularly, do my great surprise. I’m truly grateful. Perhaps this preparing to dance at or on my fathers grave is changing how I see sexism and oppressive men. It’s like exercising over a period of time for awhile, and then suddenly realizing you can run up a flight of stairs without getting out of breath. Mostly, thoughout the weekend I felt confidence, happiness, acceptance and warmth for and from the people there.

On the helpful people end of things, I made contact with a pagan social activist from my home town, who I asked for information on who I could connect with up there about my sword dance ritual. He said he and his wife (who is also pagan) would help, and gave me the name of a woman’s shelter contact who he thought I should make contact with as well. It feels like a Goddess-given connection.

It’s very interesting to me that men seem to be among my important allies in this sword dance ritual – from my friends who helped me search for a sword, to this man. Brother allies are a good thing. It looks like the person I’ll be taking sword dance classes from will be a man too – the women teachers I approached weren’t interested in teaching adult women.

I’m sorry for doing this in an email, but wasn’t certain I could explain all this well over the phone. I hope you can forward this email to whomever in your organization it might concern. I’m originally from [home town] (born and raised) and am an incest survivor. My abuser, who was my father, is still living in [home town] and is likely to die within the next year from cancer. I’ve been in recovery for over 20 years and in general am very well, but since surviving and recovering has been such a big and spiritually significant part of my life, I know I will need to celebrate my abusers death in a way consistent with my culture and spirituality, as part of having closure with him.

Photocredit: "Crossed Swords" by Bott.Richard

I’m planning to dance a traditional Scottish sword dance that is performed on the death of a mortal enemy to celebrate the victory of having outlived him and banish him from my life. Since I’m fairly certain my father will be buried in [my hometown] I’m planning to do this at his gravesite there, with a bagpiper and supportive witnesses. I’m working with a counsellor here on this and will be bringing my partner and one or two friends with me, but wanted to make contact with your organisation, in case it would be possible to receive some support from you while I am up for the ceremony. I have investigated the legalities of performing this ceremony at my father’s gravesite, and it looks like there should be no barriers. Grieving rituals are not only expressly allowed under the provincial funerals act, they are protected and cannot be interrupted by law. The cemetery itself has a no disturbing the peace rule, but a graveside grieving ceremony conducted by a relative could hardly qualify. My family are supportive and will not object.

I plan to bring a friend who is a video artist to record this event in hopes that it might be meaningful to other survivors, and would like to extend an invitation to local survivors and their allies who might want to bear witness to what I believe will be a powerful and empowering ceremony.

Anyhow, if you agree it would be appropriate to talk further about this, I’d like to speak with one of your staff about this, and keep you posted on the plans that will begin once my abuser dies. If this type of support does not fall within your mandate, I understand. I would also be willing to cover the cost of the counsellors time. Knowing that there was a feminist counsellor with childhood sexual assault literacy available in [my hometown] to check in with in some way during my visit would be very helpful.

The last few days I’ve been lonely. Being sick with a sore throat and earache, and kind of tired, I’ve not been working much and have had lots of time to myself. I find myself logging in to my blog and looking at the posts of other survivors, looking eagerly for comments on my own blog.

I’m tired. Nothing’s wrong, but I’m sick and tired, I’ve got my period and I’ve got no mother. I never had a mother, but now I really don’t. It could be I never hear from her again. I told her the truth, and she’s not a big fan of facing facts, at least not on a time scale less than glacial. I don’t regret sending her the letter, but I am a bit sad.

I’m thankful this weekend is Easter weekend. I don’t celebrate Easter, except in those areas that overlap with Eostre, the holiday Pagan’s celebrate on Spring Equinox, which are mostly the good bits about new life and bunnies and eggs and blessing children (and therefore, metaphorically, Spring Herself) with gifts of sweets. This is good because I have the time off, without the commitments.

I’ve been hungry for time to myself, but time for myself feeling sick and tired isn’t really it. One thing I’ve noticed is that although I haven’t been working as much, my business hasn’t fallen apart. Perhaps I can have a soul-life and a work life at the same time.

I’ve been able to work in the garden a bit this week, weather permitting, which has been a blessing. We’ve put in a huge rasberry patch in the back yard, and some new grass for the dogs to pee on. They set to work right away, eating the new lawn, rolling on it, and other dogly stuff. Our big dog is getting a bit frustrated with having two mommies sick, and no-one to give him the abundant affection he so clearly deserves…

I’m taking a break from the acupuncture too, till I’m well again.

Part of being Pagan is having respect for the cycles of life, the waning moon as well as the waxing, fall as well as spring, winter as well as summer, compost as well as planting, menstruation as well as ovulation.

There is a tarot card, the Hermit, which to me is about big, barely visible things happening when nothing important seems to be happening.

So as a good religious Pagan, I need to cover myself metaphorically in leaf mould (or a nice soft blanket) even when the weather and my fear of losing momentum says grow, grow, grow, and allow a little fallow stage before I move on.

And maybe that’s okay. Like spring, where things grow in fits and starts, weather and frost permitting, I’m allowed to expand and unhide and then contract a little too.

So I didn’t go and make music this week. The sore throat won. However I did compile a bunch of lyrics and listen to a lot of songs that my musical colleague wants to do, and prepared a chart of an original song we’re going to work on together. I kept going. I also practiced my guitar, enough that the calluses on my fingers are starting to come back.

(See the ant? I think of this picture as 'baby steps amid passion') Photocredit: Martin LaBar on Flickr

So, not leaping wildly out of the hiding space, but still moving. Baby steps.

I’m not long on persistence when it comes to things for me, particularly things I want desperately. I have no patience with suffering for long periods, holding on and hoping for things to get better, for people to change. All that has failed me spectacularly. It takes enormous faith, now to keep going when progress is slow or things get frustrating. The anxiety of waiting is a lot to bear.

So continuing with the baby steps in the face of obstacles is a good thing.

I still haven’t heard anything from my mother. Which is a good thing, I guess. I’m thinking, slowly, about what I’m called to do with my life, trying things on in my head like a new sweater, putting it on and checking it out in the mirror.

My wife is the best clothes shopping ally. She tells me when something makes my butt look good, or is too tight and doesn’t flatter me, even if I’ve fallen in love with the colour or fabric. She says if it doesn’t delight me, there’s no point buying it, even if it’s on sale. I almost always find something I feel, if not beautiful, at least respectable in when I go shopping with her. Without her, I almost never find anything for my atypically sized body.

I need a little support, a way to reinforce the small voice that knows the truth inside me. Sometimes writing will do it, rarely a friend will be able to get inside my strange and beautiful brain to hold a mirror to my ideas. Sometimes my wife will do it – she’s particularly good with business problems and telling me my work is valuable and worth every penny.

Encouragement is so important, being understood is so important and a little goes a long way. That’s one thing we miss out on as survivors when we ‘pass’ for non-survivors, the sense that someone knows and understands, that our reations and feelings are normal given the circumstances. It is only in community with one another that I understand this in my bones. I’m very grateful.

Yesterday night I was thinking about my own mother, and what to do about the non-contact I’ve imposed on our relationship. [Spoiler: I like the end of this post the best, so if you get bogged down in me whining about my mother, just skip it.]

My mother was likely aware that my father was sexually abusing me throughout my childhood, and when she ‘officially’ found out when I was 18 declared right away that she believed me. However, she did not leave my father over it. The shame, grief and betrayal I have felt over that fact, that a major crime against her daughter (and really all women and children) wasn’t sufficient for my mother to be willing to endure the hardship of divorce or separation, has been persistent and heavy.

My mother is now separated from my father, which she clearly states was because he was a bad husband, not because he raped me. (Although surely, raping your children makes a man a bad husband?)

My mother is anxious, dependent and scattered. She relies heavily on my younger brother for all her decision making and loves to be waited upon. She connives to be fussed over using the same tactic as some men use when feigning helplessness in the face of laundry or a diaper. She provides steady pressure on me to be a close and affectionate daughter, to visit her, fuss over her, pamper her for mothers’ day etc… She is a paradox, a feminist activist who could not leave her own rapist husband, a woman who can run for city council but could not figure out how to stand on her own.

I cannot stomach it. A mother who condones the rape of her daughter by staying is no mother at all. I will not give her her maternal due. She birthed me and taught me, diapered me and (some of the time) fed me, but this one betrayal, it seems, cancels all those other debts.

However, I used to be a therapist, and know that it is pointless to cut off one’s relatives, for the issues they present will just show up in other ways. My father is a special case, I think. Only someone deep in denial or striving for some kind of misguided sainthood would associate willingly with a man who had raped her. One needs to draw the line somewhere.

Harriet Lerner, the author and family systems therapist, says two things I like. One is that the antidote to shame is being open about what one is ashamed of. I am starting to do that by letting more and more of my friends know that I am a survivor.

Bohr Atom Model - if the electron moves into a smaller orbit, electromagnetic energy is released. Conversely if the atom absorbs a lot of energy, the electron jumps to a larger orbit.

The second thing is that distance stores energy. When I am separate from my mother, I feel less anxious, and if I move closer to her, that anxiety stored in the distance will be released and I will feel it. The more anxiety there is, the more energy is released by even a small change in distance, such as moving from not talking at all to writing post cards on a regular basis. This is similar to the energy stored in the electron orbits of an atom, where enormous amounts of heat is released when an electon moves into a closer orbit around the central proton core.

I have decided to write her a letter or two. Lerner says that the way to change an intrenched pattern in a relationship is to state clearly who one is, without blaming, firmly and while staying connected. I don’t know if I can do that. My relationship with my mother confuses me so much it is hard to know where and who I am around her, which is part of what I hate so much about being in her presence. Perhaps I will tell her a bit about how my life was during those 14 years I had no family, between the time I ‘came out’ about the abuse and began healing and when she separated from my abuser. Perhaps that will be a way to start.

The Mother I replaced my fragile, weak mother with provided me a support I could not have lived without. When I was 19 and grieving for the theft of my innocence and family by my father, She was the Ocean I stood by witnessing my howls and holding the huge pain while I let it flow. Ocean was the mother I brought my art therapy clay sculptures of parts of the abuse to, for Her to dissolve and purify. Ocean was the place I could go home to, where I could lay and listen to the sound of my Mother’s heartbeat in the waves.

My real Mother was the spruce tree in my elementary school yard with a little hollow underneath where I could sit and look at her green, fragrant branches. Just seeing Her calmed me, allowed me to cope with the teasing from other kids for being teary-eyed, ‘easily’ upset, and different.

My Mother was the grove of poplars at the end of my street I would tell my day to by standing very still and gazing up at them on my way home from high school. I grieved for them when they were cut.

My real Mother was the tall deciduous and ancient trees on the campus of the university I attended, which I could look up to and calm myself, feel heard and understood without saying a word. My mother was the Air between their branches and the roots of these aunties and mothers beneath my feet.

My Mother was the heart of the flowers I looked at every day for weeks one summer after a bad heart break, when I bicycled across town to the beach. I would walk down the stone stairway to the beach from the forest and see a large bed of flowers. Always, every day, one would be gazing it’s petalled face directly at me and I would feel comforted, that there was one being in the world that was looking for me, that saw me. I would walk to the beach and lay on my towel in the sun and let the heat soothe me, till I felt warm and comforted. I would then walk into the ocean and immerse myself, letting the salt water wash my father out of me, wash the psychic and emotional grime from my body and soul. Then I would dry myself in the sun for awhile and immerse myself again, purified by sun and salt and water, fire and earth and water and air.

My Mother now is the trees that surround my house and street. She is in the Crone waiting to accept and transform the dead and dying in the large compost bin I have in my yard. She is my grandmother’s piano, the labrynth-patterned rug I was married on in my living room. My Mother is always with me.

My Mother is my own strong Self who holds me when I face the worst of what happened to me, my self-mother in my therapy sessions who reminds me I am safe, and urges me to do the right thing, to speak truth, to be loyal to myself, to face the grief and pain and let it flow through me and from me.